I always loved Halloween:
not the candy – big deal! –
not the scary, spooky stuff,
but the luxury
of being someone else,
walking through the dark,
giddy with freedom,
as not myself.

I made a list weeks ahead
of the possible pseudonyms
I could assume,
the alter egos hidden within,
the secret identities
and multiple personalities,
so different from me,
weighing my options.

And then I’d choose one –
craft a costume,
a disguise that, not so much
hid who I was, as
made me who I wished to be,
displaced inadequate me
with better, stronger, famous,
more heroic someone else –

- anybody else.


lee
19 10 23

wow - has this made me think
my halloween costumes were just extensions of me. Like I was crying out for acceptance and making myself more likable with the costume. Even that horrible mask had to be better than the face they usually had to see...

To see it as an escape - a chance to be who/what you want without fear of reprication ... that would have definitely put a differnet slant on things.

Once again, thank you, Lee.

thanks, Mark.
i never went in for monsters or the creepy stuff.
guess i'd already had enough of that.
i was shooting for perfection:
the Lone Ranger
King Arthur
Robin Hood -
all ideal heros
strong, good, wise, capable
about as far from how i felt as i could get.

Traveler,

Your poem brought back a memory of a halloween from the first grade. I made a robot costume out of cardboard boxes, spraypainted silver. I thought it was the most amazing costume ever. I went out to trick-or-treat, and within minutes a bigger kid made fun of me saying I looked like a refrigerator. I ran home crying. Seems funny now, but at the time it seemed like the worst experience of my life up to that point. A refirigerator! Oh brother!

Jude

Jude -

ridicule of any kind can be devastating - especially when it involves a creative or expressive element of yourself.

i bet you were the cutest little robot ever!

lee